What I am thankful for

I'm cooking our Thanksgiving dinner today because we have a bunch of other things happening tomorrow. But true to my body, I woke up sick. It's not a surprise to me at all since there were many Christmases and Easters where I was in bed sick. Or I would get sick as soon as exams were over - that's how I missed my high school graduation party: I got all dressed up, went to the dinner and by the end of dinner I was sick. A teacher came into the bathroom and looked at me in disgust and said something to the effect of  "that's what you get for drinking so much". I guess she could say that since I was technically no longer a student and I'm sure it was the reason why many other kids were puking that night. But I hadn't had a drink. I had the flu. I spent the next 24 hours answering the phone from my friends calling to tell me about each fabulous party they were at, and wondering if I was better and if I could join them. I was home, sick in bed for at least 3 days.

It's not like being sick was on my mind - please don't tell me that through the law of attraction I brought this on. I haven't been sick in at least two years. Not even a cold. I'm not going to complain about being sick because I've dodged the sick bullets for a while.  I am just not surprised that in the middle of our Thanksgiving weekend that I am sick.

Still I have already walked the dog, made and baked the pumpkin pies. I just don't feeling like doing much else. I am thankful that we do not have a house full of people and I am thankful that I do not have to go to someone else's house. I am thankful we have a ham instead of a turkey and I am thankful that because it's only the three of us, I don't have to spend hours and hours in the kitchen (maybe two for dinner). I am thankful that I have tomorrow off and fully expect to feel better tomorrow. I am thankful it's s sunny day and I am thankful I am indoors and can rest in my comfy bed, which is where I'm going to go for the next couple of hours, with some yarn and knitting needles in my hands (of course).

How about you, what are your Sunday plans? 

Adventures in Asian Cuisine

Jp and I took a little trip to Richmond to visit the Japanese Dollar store called Daiso because I needed to get something from there that I haven't been able to find elsewhere. It's a little over an hour to drive there and so we decided to enjoy the food court in the mall, Aberdeen Center.  This area has a large population of Asian people and there are many 'authentic' restaurants to choose from. Many store signs in this area are written in Chinese or Korean (or other) languages and is almost like a very large "chinatown' that is common is many large cities.

At the food court I decided to try a rice dish with beef  and Jp tried a bowl of congee (it's like a rice porridge). He had heard people refer to congee many times as comfort food.

Unfortunately my dish came with the parts of beef I don't like to eat - tripe, lung, liver etc. And Jp's bowl of  congee tasted like a big bowl of wall paper paste - we have no idea how that can be comfort food for anyone. Usually we are pretty open to new foods and do like a wide range of food but I suppose  this was just too "authentic" for us. I had to throw my bowl  away and bought a bowl of lemongrass chicken soup from the Vietnamese restaurant which was absolutely yummy.  We were both disappointed  that we chose so badly on the Chinese foods.

We did have a successful shopping trip at Daiso and then went home to have some good old fashioned American hot dogs - that's our comfort food.

Photo credit: congee

Exhausting Weekend

This was a very busy weekend for me. It started on Thursday when I made vanilla cupcakes with coffee icing for Jp's birthday on Friday. Friday we went out for breakfast and then ran around for some errands including a trip to the butcher (and hour round trip)  for some delicious tender steaks - a couple New Yorks and a couple Rib Eyes (with the caps on).  Next we went to pick up his son (an hour and a half round trip)  and then it was time to get dinner started - dinner was Rosemary Roasted Nugget Potatoes, Creamed Spinach, Brussels Sprouts and the steaks cooked on the grill. That was a lot of things to figure the timing for but I did it.

Saturday we joked that he was just ordinary and we could treat him crappy because it was just a normal day. But on Sunday it was father's day so he was treated special again - Happy  Father's Day! More cooking - Eggs Benedict with homemade Hollandaise Sauce on crumpets with ham. Then I did laundry and ironing and put on the summer quilt and summer bedding. Then it was time for dinner - parmesan and breaded basa filets with rice and peas. The boys ate very well this weekend.

Including a medium bag of homemade oatmeal and cranberry cookies  - their only crime was that they were too close to a teenager late at night. It's a good thing he's skinny. But I wonder how his tummy could hold that much oatmeal...

Phew, I'm glad that weekend's over with. Now I can go back to my normal Cinderella life...ha, ha  just kidding!!!

Okay so I hadn't finished shopping as I said in my last post - there were a couple of people I wanted to get things for -one was a little stocking stuffer for all the girls in my dance glass. That was kinda hard because I needed at least 8 items and I'm not exactly rich - it took days of hunting for something that wasn't too cheap but was still a cute little item and I needed to find multiples of them so just when I'd find something I'd realize they didn't have enough of them... I ended up finding a little box on a ribbon that looked like an ornament but had chocolate bells inside. I passed them out at the end of class and they seemed thrilled -Mission Accomplished.

I did get a couple more rows knit on my ripple/wave scarf - here's a quick snapshot of the progress.

It'll look better once it's finished and 

I've blocked it (that gets it wet and stretches it out) 

Continuing on our James Bond movie watching, we're now up to Licence to Kill (1989) with Timothy Dalton. While watching the Living Daylights (1987), the first movie with Timothy Dalton, I could see why many fans didn't like him that much but then I also didn't like that movie very much. Licence to Kill was actually pretty good. Being a bit of a Pierce Brosnan fan I'm kinda looking forward to Golden Eye(1995).

Winter in Vancouver isn't so fun. Oh sure it's mild and all that but we go for days with grey skies. I'd much rather have -19 degrees celsius and bright blue skies with the sun shining than have +8 degrees and the grey skies. And it's not the rain that gets me (lots of people complain about the rain) - for me, it's the darkness. All the lights have to be on in the house all day because it's dark. And some days it's been so dark my Christmas lights on dawn/dusk timers go off at 2:30 in the afternoon! See? It's not just me that thinks it's too dark, the electronic sensors do too!

So.. why am I telling you this, only because if you have the same type of weather, you'll appreciate this pick-me-up:

See that happy dish? That was our dinner last night  - Pina Colada Shrimp and Rice. YUM. It's shrimp and pineapple and coconut and yellow peppers and green onions. Not only is it yummy but it helps put a little summer into winter! Try it, you might like it!

straw - berry!

Have you ever looked at a recipe and thought it sounded really good but didn't seem to come together when you made it?

Well that's what happened to me when I made these roasted strawberry with browned butter pancakes:

Yup, they sounded good and looked good, but they weren't that remarkable. I think one of the biggest problems with fruit these days it how it comes to market and since it's being grown all over the world at all times of the year, sweetness and/or flavour is inconsistent if it's there at all. These strawberries were actually tart. They didn't taste like raw or I would've added sugar. In fact the recipe had me roast them in olive oil and salt but that didn't seem to help them at all.

The recipe also had me brown the butter first to be used instead of oil or plain old melted butter in the pancake batter. But we felt I that the browned butter couldn't be noticed and so my efforts were wasted. It probably would have been better to brown the butter to be poured on top of the finished pancakes just before serving.

I would consider remaking this with many variations - such as sweet strawberries and the change of use for the brown butter. Have you ever had a recipe go like this? Have you made something similar ? How did you make it better? 

roll out the ice cream!

Tonight I finally had the chance to use our 'play and freeze' ice cream ball

I'm sure there are thousands of happy customers out there but I was not one of them. Maybe I was spoiled by the electric ice cream maker at my brother's house last week  that constantly moved and stirred and scraped the milk mixture off the sides.

Rolling the ball in the yard is not an easy task with a labrador retriever in the area. It looks too similar to her own balls and she kept bugging me to kick it for her. Second, initially I didn't have the lid on tight enough so sugary cream was leaking out making it even MORE enticing to a labrador retriever.

Next it needs an awful lot of ice cubs and I emptied the bag of ice in our freezer, so I now  have to run to the store in the morning for more ice. I think I might buy two or three bags of ice tomorrow and keep them in our deep freeze. Then, the ice cream froze to the size of the container making it very hard to remove. Although I felt this was a problem, someone else in the house just ate it out of the ball and didn't seem slowed down by it at all. I put the remaining ice cream in the freezer and I'll see how that goes, sometimes the ice crystals are downright dangerous!

Since it wasn't a good idea to try and roll it around the yard, I ended up wrapping it in a towel and shook it around. I figured it was a good arm work out. I was surprised how quickly 1/2 hour actually went.

Bottom line, the ice cream was good. I would have liked to return the ice cream ball to the store for a refund but Jp said we couldn't do that, so we might be passing it on to some nephews or other kids we know.

Currently my brother's homemade ice cream that is boiled on the stove is tied with the Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler's Nitro Ice  Cream which is flash frozen at your table. mmm mmm mmm. I would love to try that at home!

I'm not done with the ice cream experiment yet. I'm not much of a sweet tooth, but I do loves me some ice cream!

Say "cheese"

For all you foodies out there, you've heard time and again about how important good ingredients are so let me tell you about a very special place called the Golden Ears CheeseWorks in Maple Ridge  - oh my goodness!!!

So very delicious. Beautiful and scrumptious cultured butter, smooth flavour Quark, mild Gouda. We picked up a baguette (if we had time, I would have made the bread) and had butter and cheese and bread for dinner. Yum-my!!!

Besides the beautiful store and property and the terrific products on their shelves is the staff - family members helping to run the business. Sadly it's been a long time since I've met a passionate business person but boy does it make a difference. It's enjoyable (and lucrative for them) to be in the presence of people passionate about what they do and it shows in the quality of their products.

Another delicious destination to add to our regular shopping circuit!